Study Guide for Goethe's Faust

Note: This study guide is based on the translation of Walter Kaufmann titled Goethe's Faust (Anchor Books) which omits most of Part II.

This work is rich in wonderful contradictions and conflicts. Faust: A
Tragedy is the title given his masterpiece by Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe. Yet it might almost as easily be described as a musical comedy, in
that it has many comic passages, features many songs, and lacks a tragic ending.
Faust himself is not a classic tragic figure either. In fact, his
characteristic yearning for experience and knowledge created a type for the
romantic age still known as the Faustian hero, though he can easily seem more
of a villain than a hero; and the purported villain--Mephistopheles--is one of
the most likable characters in the play. His yearnings draw him toward the
heavens, yet he is also powerfully attracted to the physical world. The book
was designed to be read rather than performed, yet many scenes are wonderfully
designed for effective stage presentation.

It is useless to try to figure out what the "real" point of
Faust is, or which of the many views of life it presents is the
correct one. It is par excellence the Romantic masterwork
precisely because it explores a wide variety of polar opposites without
resolving them. Goethe has created a microcosm of life, trying to preserve its
complexity, its tensions, and its dynamism. Appreciating the work's complexity
and enjoying it should be your goal.

One the most important tensions expressed in this work is between learning and
experience. Faust himself rejects scholarship for life, but it would be a
mistake to suppose that Goethe unequivocally endorses this view. Mephistopheles,
who is usually both truthful and wise, warns him against this enthusiasm for
raw experience; and Goethe himself was a scholar and bureaucrat who greatly
valued the learning of the past and aimed at joining the pantheon of classic
writers. Faust is a part of Goethe, but so is Mephistopheles.

This is a work that can be hugely entertaining, but only if one understands its
references and ideas. These notes are meant to help you enjoy the work by
pointing you to significant passages that need careful thought and providing
crucial information on some difficult references. They are meant not to hand
you a simple interpretation, but to stimulate thought about the work that can
lead to an interpretation.

In this overture to his drama Goethe creates
a quaint and slightly comic Heaven in which the encounter between
Goethe and Mephistopheles is planned. What signs can you find
that Goethe does not intend this scene seriously to portray an
orthodox Christian Heaven? To "intone" an "air"
is to sing a song. A "tourney" is a tournament or
conflict.

Raphael is describing a traditional concept
called "the harmony of the spheres" in which each
planetary sphere in the solar system emits a tone which blend
together into a sort of heavenly music. In what way does the concept
of a "tourney" conflict with this concept? What astronomical
system is represented by Raphael's description of the sun
and its "brother spheres" moving around the earth?
How does this system relate to that described by Gabriel, who
describes the earth as revolving and fleeing through space? What
references to motion can you find in the speeches of the
three archangels? Can you find any pattern in the order in which
they describe various kinds of motion? (Hint: look at the scale
of things.) What contradiction is contained in the last line of
Michael's speech?

Mephistopheles' witty, ironic tone
in addressing God is quite different from that of the sober debate
in the book of Job (be sure to read today's brief assignment
in Job; any translation of the Bible will do). But what are the
basic similarities between the story in the Bible and this scene?
After the angels have been praising God for his unfathomable splendor,
how does Mephistopheles criticize God? Why is the Devil represented
as being more interested in humanity than is God? What criticism
does he make of humanity's gift of reason?

How effectively does The Lord answer Mephistopheles?
What are the chief characteristics of Faust that Mephistopheles
describes? The Lord seems to agree with Mephistopheles'
description of Faust's greatest fault when he says "Man
errs as long as he will strive." But he seems to value striving
when he says "man's activity can easily abate,/He
soon prefers uninterrupted rest;/To give him this companion hence
seems best/Who roils and must as Devil help create." What
reasons do you think Goethe might have had for having the Lord
express two such opposite views of the roles of striving and activity?
In what way does he say the Devil actually helps him to carry
out his will?

Faust has studied all of the major subjects
in which a Renaissance scholar could receive a degree, so can
be understood to have exhausted traditional learning. What is
his attitude toward his education? In what way does he feel he
is smarter than others? What activity has he turned to after rejecting
formal education? At line 386, where is he looking? At line 398?
What contrast does he draw between these two sights? Worms and
dust traditionally symbolize death; look for this symbolism to
reappear. What do the images of imprisonment and escape here convey
about Faust's mood?
Nostradamus was a Renaissance prophet
and astrologer; which of his roles is relevant in this context
(line 420)? In this context the macrocosm is the universe at
large, depicted in the Renaissance as a series of concentric circles
surrounding the earth marking the orbits of the moon, sun, planets,
and stars. How does viewing it make Faust feel? In lines 446-453
he envisions a dynamic version of the traditional Renaissance
image of the
"Great Chain of Being," seemingly influenced
by Jacob's vision in
Genesis 28:11-12). What is his reaction
to it? Notice how Mephistopheles' preference for the Earth
in the Prologue in Heaven foreshadowed Faust's preference
for the Earth Spirit over the image of the macrocosm. Faust imperiously
conjures the Earth Spirit to appear before him: what is his reaction
when it actually appears? How does Faust react to its taunts?
What does the Spirit mean when it says to him that he is a "Peer
of the spirit that you comprehend/Not mine!"? Why does Faust
call himself "image of the godhead?" (See Genesis
1:27)

Why is Faust so irritated when Wagner,
his student, thinks that he has been reading classical literature
and practicing rhetoric? What are the main points of the two sides
of the debate between Faust and Wagner? What is Faust's
attitude toward classical study? What does this classical proverb
(variously attributed to Seneca, Horace, and Hippocrates),
quoted by Wagner, mean: "art is forever,/and our life is
brief?" When Wagner claims that study of ancient writings
is valuable because it helps us enter into the spirit of the time,
how does Faust answer him? Why is Wagner's final speech
probably intensely irritating to Faust? How does it relate to
what they have been discussing earlier? Which of the two do you
agree more with? Why?

In line 808 Faust expresses his gratitude
toward Wagner for having rescued him from the despair into which
the Earth Spirit's taunts had cast him; but he almost immediately
plunges back into depression. He speaks to the absent Spirit,
expressing his humiliation. The contrast he makes between fantasy
and realism starting in line 640 is a typical romantic complaint
about the rationalist period from which he was emerging. He is
looking back with nostalgia to the Middle Ages, when the imagination
was allowed freer rein and is repelled by the narrow rationalism
of the eighteenth century. How does Faust again use the imagery
of worms and dust in lines 652-659? The skull he sees on
his shelf acts as a traditional memento mori: a reminder
of death which some devout monks kept by their beside in the Middle
Ages to remind them that they were mortal; but why might he realistically
have a skull on his shelf? The bottle which is the next object
to catch his eye almost certainly contains laudanum:
opium dissolved
in alcohol. It was an extremely common drug and relatively cheap.
Though it could not cure diseases, it made people feel better--unless
they took too large a dose, in which case they would pleasantly
drop off to sleep and die. This quality made it not only the renaissance
equivalent of aspirin but the drug of choice for suicide. How
does he propose to prove "that mortals/Have as much dignity
as any god"? In lines 712-719 Faust is contrasting himself
with Hamlet in Act 3, Scene 1 of the play (ll. 55-88). Note the
Choir of Women. A similar group of women are going to appear at
the end of the play, linked to the theme of salvation. Why doesn't
he drink? Does the song of the angels bring him to religious faith?
What effect does it have on him?

What kinds of activities are people engaging
in on this
Easter morning? Are any of them religious? What is
the attitude of "Another Citizen" toward war? Can
you compare the attitudes of the young women toward love with
those of the soldiers? What does Faust seem to feel is the meaning
of the Easter holiday? What is Wagner's reaction to Faust's
enjoyment of the scene? The song sung by the peasants has the
typical folk theme of a young girl seduced and abandoned, and
strongly foreshadows the plot of the play. Why does Faust, who
is normally completely skeptical about religion, tell the peasants
who praise him for his medical services that they should thank
God instead? Faust rather hysterically compares the medical efforts
of his father and himself to the plague ("pest"),
not because they really intended to murder anyone but because--as
Goethe knew well--
renaissance medicine was more harmful
than helpful to patients. In using the image of flight to symbolize
his longing for transcendence and escape he imagines himself pursuing
the setting sun, personified as a god,
as by the ancient Greeks
and Romans. As the sun sinks into the west, he pursues it out
over the billows (waves) of the Atlantic Ocean. This image of
eternal vain pursuit is central to Faust's ideas about
himself, which will be reflected throughout the play in many forms.
What is the basic contradiction in human nature that Faust describes
in the last part of this speech? What is Wagner's reaction
to it? In what two directions does Faust then say his soul is
torn?

When the black dog appears (a large, shaggy
animal, not a French toy poodle), what does Faust see that Wagner
cannot?

Note that at the beginning of this scene
Faust seems to be in a more nearly religious mood than at any
other point in the play. Night, which was celebrated by romantic
writers (in self-conscious contrast with the enlightenment), inspires
in him a "holy dread." What effect does the poodle
have on this mood? When we learn that the poodle is really Mephistopheles,
what do we realize he has accomplished in disturbing Faust?

When Faust "translates" the
first verse of the Gospel of John, how does his vocabulary choice
reflect his character? Based on what you read later, why do the
spirits in the corridor say "One has been caught inside"
in line 1259? During the Renaissance the salamander was thought
to live in fire, the undene in water, and the sylph in air, while
the kobold is a Germanic spirit associated with the earth. Thus
each represents one of the traditional four elements of the natural
world. Having exhausted
the natural world, Faust will have to
the demonic ("Hell's progeny"). What is an
incubus? (Look it up.)

Mephistopheles sets the tone for their
whole relationship by greeting Faust sarcastically, belittling
his prowess; but according to the traditions of the conjuring
of spirits he is in real danger of being controlled if his intended
victim can only identify his name. How does he distract him from
that question? When Faust calls Mephistopheles "God of
Flies" he is alluding to another traditional Jewish name
for the Devil:
Beelzebub. This passage is the source of the title
of William Golding's novel,
Lord of the Flies. How
does Mephistopheles' definition of himself in lines 1336-1337
relate to what The Lord has to say about his role in the Prologue
in Heaven? How does Mephistopheles argue that darkness is superior
to light in lines 1348-1368? In what sense did darkness
give birth to light? (See Genesis 1:1-5.) Why does Mephistopheles
say that his favorite element is fire? Rather than portraying
Mephistopheles as a force for evil against good, Faust understands
him as sterility against creativity. Which of these two forces
do both of them seem to feel is the stronger?

Why could the magic
pentagram (the witch's
foot) in the doorway let Mephistopheles in though it now will
not let him out? Notice that it is Faust who first raises the
possibility of signing a contract with the Devil. Goethe repeatedly
emphasizes that Faust is not seduced into evil by Mephistopheles:
he is already drawn to it, and tries to make the Devil his tool.
Why do you think Mephistopheles is so anxious to leave instead
of immediately negotiating the contract? How does Mephistopheles
manage to escape?

Faust has to invite Mephistopheles into
his study three times to symbolize his willingness to become involved
in the evil the spirit represents. Why reasons does Faust give
for saying there is nothing Mephistopheles can give him that he
wants? How does Mephistopheles humiliate him when he declares
that he wants to die in line 1571? Faust is like a patient who
approaches a doctor, saying "I want to avoid heart disease,
but don't tell me to change my diet, exercise, or take
drugs." Perhaps because he is a bit nervous about the direction
in which he is headed he is effectively ruling out just about
everything that Mephistopheles could conceivably give him. When
Faust gets into one of these melodramatic moods, Mephistopheles
usually combats him with humor. Here it is his companion spirits
who mock his words by saying he has "shattered the world"
with his curses. Their song means, in essence, "Hey, relax,
enjoy life!"

Faust has clearly read stories of other
people who have signed contracts with the Devil and experienced
disaster, and Mephistopheles tells the doctor that he will be
Mephistopheles' servant in hell, so why does Faust proceed
with the negotiation? What examples does Faust give of the deceptive
and transitory gifts the Devil has been known to provide? Why
does Faust say that he is willing to die if he ever experiences
a moment of complete satisfaction? Note these words: "If
to the moment I should say:/Abide, you are so fair;" they
are important at the end of the play. Mephistopheles insists on
the signature being in blood to force Faust into taking a stereotypically
self-damning step. He can hardly claim he didn't know what
he was getting into, since signing a contract with the Devil in
blood is notoriously a damnable thing to do. Again and again Faust
will seek to gloss over the true nature of his relationship to
evil, and again and again Mephistopheles will rub his nose in
it. Of the two longings Faust has spoken of before, which one
does he say he now wants to pursue? Does he seek happiness? What
warnings does Mephistopheles make about the probable outcome of
their contract? Which of the two longings does Mephistopheles
urge Faust to pursue? Notice the last two lines before the entry
of the student mean in which Mephistopheles confirms that it is
not he who is making Faust evil; Faust is evil already. Mephistopheles
may in fact be seen in this play as the embodiment of the evil
impulses within Faust. The fact that he is a lively and vivid
character with a personality strikingly different from Faust's
own may obscure this symbolism, but Goethe repeatedly underlines
it. Encheiresin naturae (l. 1940) is a technical term in alchemy
having to do with the supposed way in which the spirit joints the soul to the
body. Alchemists hoped to find an analogue to such a force in nature and use
it produce to the magical "philosopher's stone." Mephistopheles here mocks
their pretentious to knoweledge.
What career does Mephistopheles finally advise the student
to take up, and what typically devilish reason does he give for
doing so? People often wrote short poems or quotations in each
other's autograph books in Goethe's time. What is
the meaning of Mephistopheles' inscription ("You
shall be like God, knowing good and evil.")?
(See Genesis
3:1-5.)

What is Faust's attitude toward
witchcraft? As when he forced him to sign in blood, Mephistopheles
is maneuvering Faust into participating in obviously Satanic rituals
so that he is forced to confront the evil nature of what he is
doing. What alternative to drinking the magic potion does Mephistopheles
offer Faust? Lines 2441-2442 sarcastically allude to the fact
that in the Biblical account of creation God looks at each day's
work and sees that it is good (see
Genesis 1). What does Mephistopheles
suggest Faust should do with a beautiful woman should he find
one? Compare this with what he actually does. In what ways does
Mephistopheles say he has modernized his appearance? Line 2509
reflects the state of European civilization in the wake of the
enlightenment, shorn of its religious superstitions, but no closer
to virtue. It is important to keep reminding yourself that neither
Goethe nor most of his readers believed in the traditional Devil.
Mephistopheles is a symbol of evil--a very lively and vivid
one--but still ultimately a symbol. In lines 2526-2527 he
says that Faust can safely drink the potion because the latter
is no novice at evil; he is sufficiently corrupted already to
be "inoculated" against its dangerous effects. When
Mephistopheles says that "Three in One and One in Three"
is "illusion and not truth" he is of course mocking
the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The belief that God
can be simultaneously one and three persons is one of the most
controversial aspects of Christian belief, giving theologians
much exercise to explain this paradox in logical terms. Mephistopheles
delights in pointing out such sore spots in conventional religion.
Besides making him thirty years younger, what other effect does
the magic potion have on Faust?

A properly brought up young woman of this
time would never allow herself to be picked up on the street.
She is correct in saying she is not a "lady" (a term
reserved for the nobility at this time): she belongs to the lower
middle class. She is, however, naive in thinking that she is not
"fair" (beautiful); her difficult life has not exposed
her to public admiration before and is genuinely unaware of her
beauty until she catches sight of herself bedecked in jewels later,
in a mirror. What is Faust's reaction to her virtuous rejection
of him? Why does Mephistopheles say he cannot deliver her to him
immediately? What devilish reason does he give to justify the
delay?

How could Gretchen--the nickname
for Margaret by which she is known in the play--recognize
that Faust belonged to the upper classes (besides the shape of
his forehead)? Faust is so moved by Gretchen's obvious
innocence that he wants to abandon the planned seduction. How
does Mephistopheles shame him into proceeding with the seduction?
Note how cleverly he provides a virtuous motive for doing evil.
Gretchen is made both innocent and erotic at the same time as
she slowly removes her clothes while singing a romantic song
about the king of Thule (a mythical far-northern kingdom)? The
audience becomes voyeurs while Gretchen remains an innocent young
girl getting ready for bed. What effect does putting on the jewels
have on Gretchen?

How can you tell that Martha is not genuinely
grieving for her missing husband? Why is she so eager for news
of him? Mephistopheles' clever compliments echo Faust's
addresses to her earlier. Whereas she had then denied being either
a lady or beautiful, now she can deny only the former. Notice
how cleverly Mephistopheles works Martha up into a rage against
her missing husband by alternately telling her things that make
her eager to be reunited with him and others that make her furious
with him. She is angry that he left behind a request to have three
hundred masses sung for the repose of his soul because such masses
were very expensive. Supposedly he has spent all his wealth on
another woman and then tried to impose an enormous debt on his
wife." How does Gretchen respond to Mephistopheles'
suggestion that she should get married? What is improper about
the manner of mourning suggested by Mephistopheles in lines 2990-2991?
How do you think Mephistopheles' question on line 3006
affects her? Does her answer reveal blissful innocence or a guilty
conscience? Watch for a speech by Gretchen later that implies
the latter is the truth. Why is Martha so eager to meet the magistrate
Mephistopheles says he will bring to her?

Faust is eager to seduce Gretchen, which
will ruin her; but he is reluctant to tell a lie. What argument
does Mephistopheles use to demonstrate that this is an absurd
distinction? Again we see that he is cleverly maneuvering Faust
into doing something obviously evil and distasteful in order to
gain his ends. What argument does Faust use to maintain that his
promises of eternal love for Gretchen will not be a lie? What
is the logical flaw in his argument? What attitude toward his
situation does Faust express in his last line in this scene, and
is it justified?

How does Faust kissing Gretchen's
hand remind her of her poverty? What does Martha seem to be aiming
at in her conversation with Mephistopheles? Gretchen suffers from
an acute case of low self-esteem. In what ways does this make
her more vulnerable to Faust's seduction? What hint is
there in Gretchen's long speech about her family that she
is not entirely pleased with her mother? Can you describe how
the relationship between them has developed between this passage
and line 2163, when Faust and Gretchen reappear together as they
stroll around the garden? The technique used here is not unlike
a scene change in a film, where matters have progressed much farther
than one would have expected in the brief moments they have been
out of earshot, but because we could not hear what they were saying,
we are not bothered by this fact. What does Gretchen say her reaction
was when Faust first spoke to her? Against whom was her anger
ultimately directed? Why? Have you ever encountered this sort
of emotional reaction in real life? Gretchen's sound moral
instincts make her shudder when Faust first clasps her hands.
Watch for that reaction to return later in the play. Notice how
Faust's inelegant but passionate "No, no end! No
end! seems to be less directed toward Gretchen than toward the
mocking voice of Mephistopheles within him pointing out that by
swearing eternal life he is lying. Faust had insisted he would
be sincere, and now he is trying to whip himself up into a frenzied
passion that will make his declarations sincere; but Mephistopheles'
intervention has prevented this self-delusion from working. The
very next words (uttered by Martha) ominously foreshadow the very
"end" which Faust is trying to deny.

Gretchen says "I love you;"
but the closest Faust comes to saying it is during the daisy-petal-plucking
scene when he says "he loves you." What does
this difference reveal about each of them? Gretchen is mystified
as to what Faust sees in her. She is a classic victim of sexual
aggression: too young and naive to realize that the erotic attractions
of her body more than compensate for her lack of sophistication.
She is still so impressed by Faust's social superiority
that she cannot grasp that he is drawn to her for purely sexual
reasons.

The "exalted spirit" to whom
Faust is addressing his remarks is clearly not Mephistopheles
since he alludes to the latter in ll. 3243-3245 as someone distinctly
separate, so the spirit addressed has to be the Earth Spirit which
Faust conjured up earlier in the play. This may seem inconsistent
since we have no reason to think that Faust has maintained any
relationship with this spirit, and in fact it is partly a remnant
of a plan by Goethe to have the Earth Spirit play a much larger
role in the story than he finally did. However, we may also interpret
this as a typical piece of self-delusion on Faust's part:
he declines to accept that Gretchen is a gift of the Devil and
instead tries to credit a less obviously evil source. What is
he trying to achieve out here in the wilderness? Why does he say
he has not succeeded? In ll. 3282-3292 Faust's romantic
claims to be "communing with nature" are crudely
dismissed by Mephistopheles as a form of masturbation, one of
many instances of sexual frankness that would be avoided by writers
later in the nineteenth century. How does he tempt Faust to continue
his affair with Gretchen? What clues are there in their dialogue
that Faust has already made love with her repeatedly? In lines
3334-3335 Faust blasphemously proclaims that he is jealous when
Gretchen goes to Mass and consumes the wafer which Catholics believe
is transformed into the body of Christ. Mephistopheles answers
him with a clever erotic blasphemy of his own, based on
Song of
Songs (known in some translations as "The Song of Solomon")
7:3 in which breasts are compared to twin deer. Mephistopheles
is saying that he is jealous of Faust when the latter enjoys Gretchen
with her blouse off. Readers who don't know their Bible
thoroughly will miss this clear statement that Gretchen and Faust
have already been making love. In fact, she is almost certainly
pregnant at this point, as we will discover later. Faust is reduced
to spluttering protests by this sly remark, which Mephistophles
answers with yet another sexually-toned blasphemy, arguing that
since God made women to be the partners of men, he was the first
pimp. What evidence is there in Faust's last speech in
this scene that he knows perfectly well that he is destroying
Gretchen? How does he rationalize completing her destruction?

What feelings does Gretchen express in
her spinning wheel song? This song has been set to music several
times, most famously by Franz Schubert, as "Gretchen
am Spinnrad." Compare her feelings to what Mephistopheles
said she was feeling in the previous scene.

How does Faust respond to Gretchen's
pointed questions about his religious beliefs? How does he manage
to change this troublesome subject back to his love for her? What
important error does Gretchen make in this debate which prevents
her from understanding that Faust is evil? Why should the audience
become alarmed when Faust suggests using a sleeping potion to
drug Gretchen's mother, based what we have seen earlier
in the play? Why, although it is made clear a little later that
Gretchen is no longer a virgin and is in fact probably pregnant
at this point, does Goethe seem to evade that point by using ambiguous
language here which could be misread to mean that they have never
had sex together when in fact it is only that they have never
slept in her bedroom all night before? How would you feel about
a real girl who was willing to give her mother a dangerous drug
so that she could have sex with her lover in the same bedroom?
What is there about the portrait of Gretchen that tends to make
us more forgiving of her than of her real-life equivalent? What
effect does it have on our feelings about Gretchen that her mother
never appears on stage? What cynical reason does Mephistopheles
offer for Gretchen's curiosity about Faust's religious
beliefs? Mephistopheles does not really take pleasure in sexual
desire for its own sake--only for the evil it may lead to. He anticipates in
his last line the disasters to come.

What is your reaction to the character
of Lieschen? How does she cause us to side emotionally with Gretchen?
What techniques does Goethe use in this scene and elsewhere to
avoid presenting Gretchen as a wicked sinner? How does this scene
indirectly make us aware that Gretchen is pregnant?

What is ironic about the name of Gretchen's
brother? What are his feelings about her? Does he really care
about her for her own sake? How many days away is Walpurgis Night
(April 30)? What is the subject of Mephistopheles' serenade?
Why does Mephistopheles insist on parrying Valentine's
thrusts while Faust thrusts at him? How does Valentine's
dying speech make us more sympathetic with Gretchen? Martha is
correct in calling his self-righteous words blasphemous since
he is presuming to be more judgmental than God, whereas it can
be argued that Jesus taught that humans should be more forgiving
than God, who is the only one who can send sinners to eternal
damnation without hope of forgiveness (see Matthew 18:22-35).

Gretchen is at the funeral of her mother,
killed by the sleeping potion, and of Valentine, killed by Faust.
She is crazed with guilt and terror for her role in this catastrophe.
When the evil spirit which acts as her guilty conscience refers
to a foreboding presence which frightens her ("underneath
your heart"), what is he talking about? The choir sings
the famous opening lines from the Dies Irae, the traditional
chant describing the Day of Judgment which is sung during the
mass for the dead. How are their words related to Gretchen? [Dies
iræ, dies illa,/Solvet sæclum in favila; Day of
wrath, on that day when the world shall dissolve in ashes; Judex
ergo cum sedebit,/Quidquid latet adparebit,/Nil inultum remanebit;
So when the judge takes his seat, whatever has been hidden will
appear, nothing shall remain unpunished; Quid sum miser tunc
dicturus?/Quem patronum rogaturus?/Cum vix justus sit securus;
What shall I, a wretch, say? Who shall I ask to plead for
me, when scarcely the righteous shall be safe?]

The
eve of May Day is here observed as
a kind of Halloween, filled with Devil worship in the Harz mountains,
where Goethe had spent a memorable night after hiking up the famous
site of this scene. Much of the opening is sung, and Goethe uses
a variety of devices to create the illusion of climbing on a static
stage. What references to motion of various kinds can you find
in this part of the scene? Note how even the trees are brought
to life. Will o' the wisps were spirits (actually phosphorescent
swamp gas) that were believed to lead the unwary traveler deeper
and deeper into the wilderness until he or she was lost and destroyed.
Why is such a guide chosen to lead them up the mountain? How is
the theme of striving which pervades the play reflected in the
Half-Witch? What is Mephistopheles' reply to Goethe's
hope that he will finally achieve the answers to many riddles
at the Walpurgis Night celebration? In traditional witchcraft,
some ceremonies were performed nude. How does Goethe do a satirical
variation on this theme? Why does Mephistopheles speak as if he
were losing his power in lines 4092-4094? Is he really commenting
on the impending Last Judgment or on the decline of religion in
the age of Enlightenment? Keeping in mind the latter interpretation,
notice how he ridicules the Huckster-Witch (a huckster is a sleazy,
dishonest merchant).
Lilith is rarely (and unclearly) alluded
to in the Bible, but Jewish tradition makes her the first, rebellious
wife of Adam, and later a symbol for everything evil about women.
The impudently erotic song Faust sings as he dances with the young
witch is modelled on the
Song of Songs 7:7-8, in which a woman's
breasts are compared to fruit growing on a tree which man may
climb up to gather. Note that Mephistopheles and the old witch
use much more obviously obscene metaphors in the following exchange.
What effect does the enlightenment rationalism of the Proktophantasmist
have on the Walpurgis Night celebration? In mythology, Perseus
rescued Andromeda by cutting off the head of Medusa, whose gaze
could turn a person to stone. Goethe here blends that story with
a traditional tale of a young woman who persisted in wearing a
velvet band around her neck night and day. When her new husband
removed it while she slept, her head fell off. She had earlier
been executed, but kept alive by the witchcraft of the band. One
theory has it that the story was inspired by the red thread which
was tied around the necks of those intended for the guillotine
during the French Revolution, to make the place where the blade
should fall. The American author Washington Irving retold a version
of this story in "The Adventure of the German Student"
(1824). This blending of northern European and Greco-Roman mythology
is very typical of Goethe. This imagery also foreshadows the fact
that Gretchen has been condemned to the executioner's ax.
How in this scene does Faust make it unequivocally clear that
he had made love with Gretchen before this time?

This is the only scene in the play which
Goethe left in the original prose. Perhaps he thought its depressing
subject was better suited to prose than poetry. Faust, feeling
at last some qualms of conscience, has fled Gretchen again to
commune with nature in the countryside. Evidently quite a while
has passed since Walpurgis Night, for Gretchen has despaired after
the night in which her mother and brother both died, feeling that
she is to blame. Abandoned, she has killed the infant fathered
by Faust by drowning it in a forest pool; but she has been caught,
tried, and condemned to death. Infanticide by guilt-ridden young
mothers was quite common at this time, and is hardly unknown today,
though it has always been strongly outlawed in Europe since the
advent of Christianity. Mephistopheles has just informed Faust
of all this as the scene begins, and we must infer what has happened
from his reaction and from what follows. Faust again tries to
appeal to the Earth Spirit (addressing him as "infinite
spirit") to try to undo his relationship to Mephistopheles.
How does Mephistopheles answer his hysterical accusations and
turn the blame back around onto Faust? Mephistopheles proposes
to stand guard, but Faust must be the one to actually help her
escape from prison, just as in the duel with her brother Mephistopheles
parried while Faust was forced to strike. The decisions involving
moral responsibility must be Faust's alone, despite his
constant efforts to shift responsibility to Mephistopheles.

The character of Gretchen was inspired
in the first place by a real-life story Goethe had heard of a
young woman who was seduced and abandoned, who killed her illegitimate
child, was condemned to death, and whose repentant lover joined
her in prison to share her fate. In what important way does this
scene differ from the original incident? Having been either directly
or indirectly responsible for the death of her mother, brother,
and baby, Gretchen has gone insane with guilt. As she sings madly
in her prison cell, she blends the
classical myth of Tereus and
Procne (which involves cannibalism and rape) with a similar Germanic
tale in which the victim is turned into a bird. In whose voice
is she singing?

Who does she think is coming when she hears
Faust and Mephistopheles enter? How does she speak differently
than she might have if her madness did not prevent her from recognizing
Faust, and how does that create a powerful effect on him? What
has she learned that she did not understand earlier that explains
why he seduced her? European brides wear
wreaths of flowers on
their wedding day to symbolize their unbroken virginity, so the
torn wreath symbolizes her fall from virtue. Gretchen imagines
that someone else has stolen and killed her baby, and complains
of the sensational street ballads that are being composed about
her crime. What evidence is there that Gretchen, though mad, has
recovered much of her sensitivity to evil? In what way does line
4490 say more than Gretchen intends? At what point does she seem
to emerge from her madness into relative sanity? When she imagines
that she can still see Valentine's blood on Faust's
hand Goethe is of course alluding to the famous scene in which
Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth, guiltily sleepwalking, imagines
that Duncan's blood is still staining her hands (Macbeth,
Act V, Scene 1, ll. 39-59). Why does she feel that she has to
be buried "a little aside" from her mother and brother?
How are you affected by her mad vision of seeing her baby still
struggling in the pond? Although Faust never proposed to her,
he has obviously been dreaming of wedlock since she fantasizes
that the next day is to be her wedding day. The theme of the tragic
young woman wed to death is a very old motif, going back at least
to the ancient Greeks, with Sophocles' Antigone being a
classic example. Where the translation says "My veil!"
(line 4583), she actually says "My [bridal] wreath!"
See the above explanation of bridal wreaths to understand what
she means. As she imagines her own execution, she is finally saved--why?
What is her final reaction toward Faust? What is the meaning of
her last cry as she ascends into Heaven? How many different interpretations
can you give it?

This scene's setting in the Elysian
Fields is similar to setting of the Prologue in Heaven, since
both are antiquated, unbelievable versions of heaven used for
their symbolic rather than their religious value. This part of
the play was written under the powerful influence of Goethe's
conversion to classicism at the very time when many romantics
were turning away from it. He divided Part II of Faust
into five acts like a classical drama (Part I had been modelled
on Shakespeare's looser structure) and introduced into
it many figures from Greek and Roman antiquity. What does it mean
that both a Christian and a pagan heaven can exist in the same
play? Accompanied by the mythical Aeolian harps of antiquity (carved
stones which produced music when the wind blew through them),
Ariel--a spirit from Shakespeare's The Tempest--helps
to revive Faust after his traumatic experience of Part I. Since
he has done nothing to deserve this, such as repenting his evil
deeds, why do you suppose it happens? What does it tell us about
Goethe's beliefs? His dramatic intentions? The river Lethe
in classical mythology was the boundary between life and Hades,
the land of the dead. Here its function is quite different, influenced
by Dante Alighieri's use of it in the opening of the Purgatorio,
where saved souls wash away their sins in a sort of post-mortem
baptism. The racketing sound of Phoebus Apollo's chariot,
drawing the sun over the horizon, is as old-fashioned, creaky,
and implausible as the cosmological opening of the Prologue in
Heaven. Rather than repenting, what does Faust vow to do when
he reawakens? Compare the passage on the rising sun in lines 4695-4714
with the earlier passage on the setting sun in lines 1074-1099.
What are the major differences? What are the similarities?

Our translation now skips a vast portion
of Part II. Be sure to read the "Synopsis of omitted portions"
on pp. 32-44. Much of this part of the play wanders far
afield from the central narrative of the old Faust legend; and
although it was highly thought of by German romantic scholars,
it has seldom caught the imaginations of other readers. Faust
has been given a seaside kingdom by the Emperor, which he has
enlarged by diking and draining the swampland--a common
practice from the Middle Ages onward in Holland and southwestern
Germany. The wanderer who appears in this scene is playing the
role played by the gods in Ovid's Metamorphoses,
when they test the hospitality of villagers by appearing in the
guise of wandering beggars. Only an old couple named Baucis (the
woman) and Philemon (the man) are willing to open their houses
and cupboards to them, and only they are preserved when the rest
of the village is drowned in a flood. Goethe expects his readers
to know their Ovid well enough to recognize the names and make
the proper associations. The wanderer is amazed to find the former
seacoast where he was washed up years ago has become part of Faust's
kingdom. How does Philemon's attitude toward this fact
differ from Baucis? What is Goethe implying about the relative
moral sensitivities of men and women?

How does Faust's reaction to the
ringing of Baucis and Philemon's chapel bell compare with
his reaction to the bells of Easter Morning in Part I? What does
the difference tell us about the development of his character?
Lynceus, the palace lookout (another classical figure), sees Faust's
merchant fleet returning? What evidence is there that he is using
illicit means to conduct this trade? In line 11188 Mephistopheles
alludes ironically to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, discussed
above. Why is Faust's line "One would as soon no
more be just" ironic? As you would find it you followed
up the reference to I Kings 21, King Ahab envied the vineyard
of his subject Naboth. His wicked wife arranged for Naboth to
be killed so that Ahab could seize it. Thus Mephistopheles is
clearly preparing us to expect the deaths of Baucis and Philemon
as Faust plays the role of Ahab.

As in a Medieval morality play like Everyman,
allegorical figures enter who symbolize the approach of death.
They also parallel the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: death,
war, famine, and plague (see Revelations 6:1-8). In this context
"Want" and "Need" mean "poverty."
Why is Faust not threatened by them? What does it tell us that
Guilt cannot reach Faust? "Care" is used here in
the sense of "worries, troubles." Why is she the
only one of the sisters to reach Faust? Does Faust's wish
to abandon witchcraft in lines 11404-11407 mark a change
from his earlier attitudes? What philosophical conclusions does
Faust draw from his life experience in lines 11433-11452?
In what ways are these different from his earlier attitudes? In
what ways the same? How does Care's next speech hint that
Mephistopheles may not win his end of the bet with The Lord, though
in line 11485 he says he will send Faust to Hell? Since it is
pitch black and Faust can see nothing anyway (he never realizes
he's been blinded), and since the effect cannot possibly
be shown in the play, what is the point of having Faust be blinded
at the end of this scene?

As Mephistopheles has the Lemures (zombies
patched together out of dead body parts) dig Faust's grave,
the former meditates on the absurdity of death, which is a frequent
theme in his speeches. What does Faust think the digging outside
is accomplishing? How does Mephistopheles sarcastically prophesy
that all his hopes are in vain, and how does this comment connect
with the Baucis and Philemon story in Ovid? Many readers have
felt that Faust's final speeches are meant to show a benign
attitude that justifies his salvation; but has he actually changed?
He does say, "Abide, you are so fair," so why aren't
the terms of the contract fulfilled? What in Mephistopheles'
speech following his death hints that he realizes this fact?

As Kaufmann points out in the introduction,
this was the last scene Goethe wrote, a wildly comic, blasphemous
account of how Faust is saved, as if he wanted to underline that
the final scene must not be taken seriously as a scene of orthodox
redemption. It has utterly failed to achieve that goal with most
scholarly readers, partly because they are too embarrassed by
its obscenities even to discuss it. The Hell's Mouth, like
the heavens depicted earlier, is an obsolete bit of stage apparatus.
During the Middle Ages and Renaissance such a prop was often used
in religious dramas depicting Christ delivering the holy patriarchs
from Limbo after his Crucifixion (there was such a prop listed
in the inventory of Shakespeare's theater). What in Mephistopheles'
speech indicates that it is not to be taken seriously? Psyche
is the Greek mythological name for the human soul. How is the
effort to capture the soul made grossly physical in this scene?
Why does Mephistopheles call the angels "devils in disguise?"
How is the Devil traditionally related to angels? What sight ultimately
distracts Mephistopheles so that the angels are able to make off
with the soul? Is he attracted by their virtue?

An "anchorite" is a religious
hermit, usually living in the wilderness. They are given Latin
names: Pater Ecstaticus, The Ecstatic Father; Pater
Profundus, The Father of the Deeps; and Pater Seraphicus,
The Seraphic (angelic) Father. How does Faust's salvation
in this Neoplatonic Heaven differ from that preached by conventional
Christianity? In what ways is it similar to his rebirth at the
opening of Part I? How does his journey through the levels of
Heaven relate to the main themes of the play? According to the
beliefs of Faust's time, the souls of unbaptized infants
went to Limbo in Hell. Here they are given the more Romantic role
of guiding the soul to Heaven. Since The Lord said at the beginning
of the play that "Man errs as long as he will strive"
why do the angels here seem to quote him as stating that "Who
ever strives with all his power,/We are allowed to save"?
A "chrysalis" is the cocoon out of which a butterfly
hatches. What seems to be the ultimate power that draws Faust
into Heaven? The Doctor Marianus is a theologian (not a
medical doctor) specializing in the veneration of the Virgin Mary,
"heaven's queen." Why is he presented as being
in the "highest, cleanest cell?" What is the significance
of the Magna Peccatrix (woman who has sinned greatly)?
See Luke 7: 36-50. She has been traditionally confused
with Mary Magdalene, who is discussed elsewhere; and Goethe probably
meant her to be identified as such; but which of her characteristics
is particularly relevant here? What is relevant in the story of
the Mulier Samaritana (Samaritan woman) in John 4:1-30?
Maria Aegyptica , whose story of sin and repentance is
told in the Medieval Acts of the Saints, is the third of
these women. How does Gretchen (Una Poenitentium, A Penitent)
fit in with them? Her role her is clearly modelled on that of
Dante's Beatrice in The Divine Comedy, in which
the poet's human beloved is transformed into an agent of
salvation. In what way are the defeat Mephistopheles and the salvation
of Faust caused by the same force? The final lines of the play
are mistranslated. They actually say, "Eternal womanhood
draws us onward." Considering the themes of the
rest of the play, why is this a fitting ending? Since Goethe was
clearly not a Christian, why do you suppose he wrote this scene
in Heaven? Since Faust never repented his sins and did no notably
virtuous deeds and never expressed any religious faith, why do
you think he is saved?